


Small Talk

by BlueMorpho (caacrinolaas)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Gen, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Names, Prompt: Names, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-10 07:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caacrinolaas/pseuds/BlueMorpho
Summary: Pidge and the two Alteans compare an important aspect of their unassumingly different culture.





	Small Talk

An opinion that was shared among all of the Paladins, though left unspoken, was that it was painfully hilarious how nobody but Hunk questioned their situation. 

Aliens are real? Neat. Sentient robot lions? Cool. They lived on a massive castle now, built by aliens, run by aliens, inhabited by aliens. 

Well, technically, the Paladins were the alien ones here. 

This thought occurred to Pidge as she landed herself in between the two Alteans, reviewing the dusty technology found near the base of the ship. While the castle was the finest piece of technology any of the humans had ever seen, that didn't mean it hadn't been left unattended for around ten thousand years. 

She also realized, as the two Alteans bounced paragraphs of words back and forth, that they knew next to nothing about their culture other than Coran's occasional untranslatable dialect and vocabulary as well as Allura's unsympathetic instruction style. 

Given that Alteans coincidentally looked similar to humans, it never truly set into the Paladins just how different they might be. Even the simplest things could be different, and something itched at the back of her mind that she noticed was off the moment they introduced themselves. 

Pidge looked between the two Alteans, whose gazes were fixated elsewhere. "Allura, Coran, do you guys have last names?" 

"Last names...?" Allura turned to look at Pidge, seemingly surprised by the question. "Well, of course we do. Not all Alteans, but given we were connected to or are royalty it's a given we would have at least two earned names." 

"Oh, cool. So your last names are like, titles or something." 

"Yes, somewhat. I assumed that humans only had one name. Is that false?" 

"At our age we usually just go by our first name! Most people usually have three or four names, but they aren't like titles... not anymore, at least," Pidge added thoughtfully. 

"Ah, I see. Generally, Alteans go by our first names no matter our societal status, though we tend to have an average of four names. Any other names are earned throughout our life either through our work and experiences, death of a parent, or through royal status." 

"That's right!" Coran finally cut in as he looked up from the panel he was fiddling with, "I earned the name Smythe after my grandfather and I built this very castle, and it was tacked on the tail end of my name to symbolize it's importance. Hiernymous is one given along with my status as royal advisor. Wimbleton is, well..." 

He trailed off, not looking as if he wanted to divulge that information to the the youngest human. Allura's lips tightened in amusement. 

Pidge elected to ignore those implications. "That's awesome! How many names do you have, Allura?" 

"Six. Princess is considered to be part of my name, as well as my mother's name. Technically, Alfor should be one of my names as well, so I should have seven..." 

Allura trailed off an gaze slipped to the floor. Coran gently placed a hand on her shoulder. 

"We have family names. And middle names. Not in that order," Pidge continued quickly, hoping to veer away from more turbulent subjects, "family names are used within families, obviously, and it's original purpose was to distinguish people with the same names. For example there could be me, Katie Holt, and another Katie down the street who's last name is... I dunno, Katie Smith." 

The Princess opened her mouth to comment, but Pidge cut her off, speech gradually growing faster as she rambled further. 

"Last names can also kinda distinguish where someone's family is from too. Well, all names can honestly. All of Shiro's names are Japanese. Keith's last name is Japanese but his first name isn't. Lance has two last names and I'm pretty sure Lance isn't actually his name. Hunk's name... well, Hunk isn't his real name either.

Lots of people use nicknames, like Hunk and me! And Lance. And Shiro. Wait. That means Keith is the only one that doesn't use a different name. Weird. 

Pidge isn't my real name, the nickname first came from me not being able to pronounce my middle name which is Paige, and Katie is short for Katherine. Am I talking to fast? I think I'm talking too fast. I dunno why I'm so excited about this topic." 

The girl cut herself off, eyes shining up at the other two. The two Alteans looked down at her with wide eyes and blinked. 

"I... processed about half of that." Allura said, Coran nodded in agreement. 

Pidge rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Sorry..." 

"Don't fret!" Coran smiled down at her and twirled his mustache. "Though I couldn't follow everything, what I did hear sounds very interesting." 

"Perhaps another time when we aren't busy, we can talk more about this. Human culture is very..." Allura tipped her head to the side, "it's very unique! We would love to learn more about it." 

The three turned back to their original task, and the subject was dropped. While it was a short chat, Pidge felt she was more inclined to learn about them than before. She made sure to tell the others about this later.

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could get these prompts done more quickly. School★
> 
> I might as well share the more in depth headcanons I thought of while making this:  
> • because Alteans live a long time, their population is significantly smaller so each individual has a unique name  
> • giving a child the same first name of another Altean is considered an offense, so there is no other Altean named Allura, Melenor, Coran, etc...  
> • adding on to that, parent names are added because loss of a parent is a very drastic event due to long life span. Because those individuals are no longer alive, they're given to their children in a sense that they "live on" in their child  
> • being awarded a name is either a very high honor or a public criminal record ex. Wimbleton is from Coran's gambling life  
> • there can be repeat of title names, so Coran's grandfather would also have the name Smythe  
> • Allura is especially sad because there would be no proper Altean funeral or ceremony for being given the name Alfor. RIP...


End file.
